Rookie tackle Chris Williams’s herniated disc turns out to be no surprise for the Chicago Bears. When the Bears drafted him in the first round, they already knew of his injury, but the concern increased when he further injured it in practice. After the training camp incident, Williams had to have surgery on August 6, which will take him 10 weeks to recover from. Williams told reporters, “I had a herniated disc before I got here. I knew that. Everyone knew that. It just was a thing where most people it doesn’t affect. It wasn’t affecting me so if nothing is broke, you don’t fix it. Then something happened in practice that second day, the disc started moving and that caused some problems.”
Like other rookies on the Bears’ roster, Williams comes from Vanderbilt, where he started 33 consecutive games. Williams was chosen 14th overall in the draft and was signed to a $16 million contract that locks him in for the next five years. If the Bears did know about his injury prior to the draft, they must have been assured that he would be worth the money even if his back had to be fixed. Now that they are in that position, fans are hoping they were right. Get your Chicago Bears tickets from StubHub.com.